You and I are a Gang of Losers
by Kelly1
Summary: Pietro and Dominic go out for the evening; Fred, Neena, and Mortimer don't. Toad POV Brotherhood fic, implied M/M, F/F. Pietro/Dominic, Mortimer/Pietro, hinted at Neena/Rogue


**Title:** You and I are a Gang of Losers  
**Verse:** Wolverine and the X-Men  
**Word Count:** 1800ish  
**Rating/Warnings:** Teen for language. Implied M/M, F/F relationships. Also, it's apparently 'sad as heck' ficlet week on my journal, because this takes a decidedly depressing turn at the halfway point.  
**Characters:** Toad POV, with Quicksilver, Avalanche, Domino, and Blob.  
**Pairings:** Established Pietro/Dominic, implied one-sided Mortimer/Pietro, Domino/Rogue  
**Disclaimer:** Nope, checked. Still Marvel's, not mine.  
**Summary:** Ficlet, as requested by foxiglove, whom I adore. "Brotherhood team-fic is awesome. Maybe some Neena, Fred and Mort bonding time. Even if it's just talking, or better yet if it's a mission they're on." Ummmmmm. So, I think this might be the most fail I've been with these prompts thus far. Because there's bonding between these three, sort of, but it's largely unspoken...I guess. :: hides ::

A/N: Pietro and Dominic were just supposed to make a brief guest appearance, and then they ended up sort of high-jacking the first half of this ficlet. Oh gosh, Pietro calling Dom by his full name may just be my new favourite thing ever. Yeah... :: looks at shoes :: that sometimes happens with them. Bad OTP, no biscuit.

-  
Mortimer sort of expected Mephisto to show up with frostbite any second now, because Hell had indeed frozen over; Dominic was wearing a tie.

Mort was setting the table (not properly, he knew, just a handful of cutlery plopped haphazardly beside the plates.) Neena and Fred were already there. It was the routine of the Brotherhood household: eight o'clock would roll around and they would congregate in the kitchen. Sometimes Pietro would ask them what they wanted to eat and sometimes he would just produce take-out for them. (They didn't cook very often.) Pietro was in charge of organizing the meals because Pietro was in charge of organizing the budget, and generally that system worked pretty smoothly.

Fred let out a low wolf whistle as Dominic poured a glass of water from the tap. Neena perched herself on the counter, chin pressed against her palm, grinning broadly and sweetly at him. "Aww, guys, look. Petrakis got himself a date to junior prom. Hold on, let me get the camera." She opened her eyes wide, fanning away fake tears with her hand. "I'm just so proud." Mortimer snorted. It was their God-given right as teammates to bust each other's balls whenever possible, and Mortimer was always happy when he wasn't the one on the receiving end.

A gust announced Pietro's presence at the doorway. "There you are," he said, crossing the room, giving Dominic a slow smile that wasn't entirely G rated. "Ready?"

Dominic nodded, downing the glass in a quick gulp. "You look nice."

And Pietro did, too. Sleek and polished and neat, well assembled in a blazer and a button up. (Not that Mortimer noticed those sorts of things.) Pietro picked at a microscopic and quite possibly non-existent piece of lint at his elbow. "Are you implying there's ever a time that I don't?" A pause as he looked up, scandalized. "Oh God, Dom, that's a horrible excuse for a half-Windsor in an even more horrible excuse for a tie. What are you _thinking_?"

Mortimer could practically see Dominic biting his tongue. Pietro was near enough to the counter now to seize the tie in his fist, pull Dominic close, and press a quick kiss to his nose. He then proceeded to retie the knot, fussing as he tugged the corners crisp. Dominic stood stock still, indulging him. "I am thinking we are going to be late if we do not leave soon."

"You are _such_ a product of the 'burbs, Dominikos. We're not talking about Astoria here, this is Manhattan; you're nobody if you don't show up at least fifteen minutes after your reservation."

"I would rather be a nobody who gets to eat." Dominic finally swatted Pietro's hands away, but he was smiling.

Pietro scowled at the offending piece of silk for a moment, and then turned his attention to his teammates. "We're going out for dinner," he announced, completely unnecessarily. "You're in charge, Neena. There's pizza in the freezer. Make sure you put the boys to bed at a decent hour; they're a bit fussy because they wouldn't go down for their afternoon nap. You can read them a story if you'd like, but nothing too scary," Pietro reached up to pat Fred's head, "They get nightmares."

"Only the one, where I don't get paid enough for this shit." Fred grinned at him. "Can't seem to wake up from it, though."

Mortimer laughed hard, and so did the rest of the Brotherhood. Fred always managed the best one-liners, maybe simply by the virtue that he kept pretty quiet most of the time, (unlike Neena and Pietro who traded them all day,) and so they were more unexpected. They were still chuckling when Pietro hooked his arm into Dominic's and gave him a quick tug toward the door. "Alright, guys, we'll see you later." And because there wasn't really a tidy conversation segue from Fred's joke, because the place had thin walls, (and not because they were purposely trying to eavesdrop,) they heard Pietro say, "Seriously, Dom, that _is_ a terrible tie."

There was the jingle of keys and the zipping of coats. Dominic sounded vaguely annoyed. "I bought it specifically for tonight."

"Where, 1994?" Dominic must've been giving Pietro _the look,_ because Pietro quickly added, "Okay, okay, sorry, it's a very fine and good tie. I'm just teasing." And there was a pause, lingering and soft and a bit too long, and Mortimer tried very hard _not_ to listen, lest he heard the sounds of making out. "You know, you clean up pretty good." The door clicked close and the deadbolt slid across, and Mortimer looked guiltily at Neena and Fred, who were also trying to pretend that they hadn't heard the entire thing.

The kitchen was thick with an awkward silence. Mortimer broke it first, sort of, clearing two forks, two knives, and two plates, setting them back in the cupboard with a clatter, slamming the drawer, and then slumping heavily down into one of the seats. Neena played with the lid of the dish soap bottle. Fred cleared his throat.

It wasn't that Pietro and Dominic had flaunted their ridiculously happy couple shit; or, rather, it wasn't just that. Really, Mortimer doubted it bothered anyone but him, at least in more than an abstract way, (maybe Neena a little bit more than it used to after the whole Rogue thing,) but neither Fred nor Neena had a thing for Pietro (or Dominic,) as far as Mort could tell. What really bothered each and every one of them, Mortimer knew—even though they didn't say it, even though they never ever talked about it even when it was just the three of them—was the fact that Pietro and Dominic got to _leave._

Sure, Mortimer would go out during missions and stuff, but this was so… different. Dominic simply had to remove his helmet; Pietro would slick back his hair with gel and not strut around in teal spandex with a ridiculously obvious lightning bolt on it (not even the MRD had a good photo of his face. Pietro was always a blur in footage and no one would ever recognize him,) and, in a city as big as New York, Pietro and Dominic could slip in among the general population without anyone batting an eye. (The general population practically broke the hinges on their eyelids batting them at Neena, Freddy, and Mort.)

Fred had it bad. He wasn't exactly low profile to begin with, but Mortimer had known who 'The Blob' was, known exactly what his face looked like and would've been able to pick him out of a line-up long before he had even joined the Brotherhood. The MRD had made an example of Fred, using the crystal clear press photos that some jerk, the owner of the…place (Mortimer didn't like to use the word 'freakshow') that Fred used to be a part of, had eagerly given to the government to use. The posters had been put up everywhere, a smear campaign against mutants in general and the BOM specifically; Mortimer thought the tagline "Brotherhood at Large" had been particularly cruel.

And Mortimer knew 'particularly cruel' well. It was what happened when some guys who were bigger than you tried to shake you down on the street for money that you didn't have, pushed you around, and, when your hood slipped down or your glove came off or your careful, necessary disguise was ruined in some other way when you were just trying to get the hell away, and they realized what you were, (_'Freakshow,'_) and hit you twice as hard.

And it had to be twice as hard on Neena, because she was just a little bit older. She wasn't a stranger to the stares but, before people had known what she was, she had been politely avoided, whispered about in soft tones. ('Oh, that poor girl.' 'Maybe she has a skin condition.') Now, it was socially acceptable to publicly scorn her. She didn't care, or, rather, she said she didn't care (which wasn't quite the same thing,) and she would go sometimes to the mutant bars, or out at night for a walk. It wasn't that she was afraid; it was the small stuff that got to her, the things she used to be able to do but couldn't anymore without them being a pointless hassle. (Pietro made the weekly trip to the Laundromat. Dominic did the grocery shopping.) This one time, and Mortimer had only been with the Brotherhood for a few weeks, he'd walked in on Neena doing the dishes, or more...kind of just standing at the sink and staring at the dish soap like it had personally wronged her. His attempt to sneak a soda out of the fridge unnoticed had failed. "_Every_ time." Mortimer had jumped; he wasn't even sure that she was talking to him. (She wasn't, really.) "I write out _specifically_ what I want on the list _every time_, and _every **fucking** time_ Petrakis comes back with this useless shit." Her contempt at the little yellow bottle had been palpable, and Mortimer had beaten a hasty retreat. It hadn't exactly taken a genius to figure out that it wasn't about the soap.

In the kitchen, now, Neena pushed the cap of the bottle down with a wet click and a soft sigh, sliding gracefully off the counter and walking to the refrigerator. Mortimer felt the cool draft of air on the back of his neck as she opened the freezer door. "Hey, Maximoff wasn't lying. There actually _is_ pizza in here. You guys hungry?"

And yeah, of course they were hungry, so while they cooked the pizza, they talked about safe stuff: sports, that bad movie that was supposed to be on TV tonight about man-eating locusts staring the chick from Xena, whether Emma's breasts were fake. (Neena was the only holdout. _'It's not so much that I believe they're real, it's that I _want_ to believe.'_) It was only when they were halfway through their third pizza that Fred mentioned it, sort of, "I bet the portions are shit in that place, anyway."

"Mhm," Neena picked a pepperoni off her slice and popped it in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. "The Manhattan restaurant scene is definitely overrated. At least the last time I was there."

Mortimer nodded, smiling (trying to smile. He didn't really feel like eating anymore, and put the half-finished slice down on his plate.) "Yeah, and I bet they have, like, seventeen forks or some shit."

Neena snorted, "At _least_...Way to go, Mort, now I can't get the mental image of Petrakis eating everything with his pinkie in the air out of my head."

Mortimer chuckled, because, really, that was kind of funny, and scraped his chair across the tile. He stood. "I, uh, think I'm done; I'm going to start on the dishes."


End file.
